Runaway Train
Our Nation is on a “runaway train” of events. Just now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld part of the abortion drug ban of an extremist Texas Federal Judge. It’s not the nationwide ban he called for, but it still limits access to the drug, Mifepristone, that’s been used for over twenty years and shown to be safer than Tylenol and Viagra.
Monday, we got started with another mass shooting, this time in Louisville, this time a bank. The common theme is what we’ve heard over and over again: a young white man, an assault “AR-type” rifle, untreatable wounds. Five died, more wounded, including the two young police officers who heroically confronted the shooter within minutes. They did their “job”: one officer sworn in just days before, was shot in the head.
US secrets about Ukraine were leaked to the open internet. Donald Trump is back in New York for another court action and trying to silence Michael Cohen with a massive lawsuit. President Biden is rejoicing in his Irish ancestral homeland, and there’s an internal Democratic spat over Senator Feinstein’s absence. It’s hard to catch your breath, difficult to keep up.
New York Minute
But let’s pause for a second (maybe a New York minute), and look back at what’s happening in Nashville. Last week, the super-majority Republicans in the Tennessee State Legislature expelled two young Black men who represent parts of Nashville and Memphis. The two Democrats had the audacity to join children protesting the lack of any gun regulations in Tennessee, after three nine year-olds and three adults were killed in a school shooting. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones took to the “well” of the chamber along with White representative Gloria Johnson to join in the chants for change (see last week’s essay, Tennessee).
The Republicans voted to expel Pearson and Jones. Johnson narrowly remained in her seat. The point was obvious: young Black men in the Tennessee State Legislature should barely be seen, and never heard. The Leadership of the House seemed to take pleasure in removing them.
That created a national firestorm. The “Justins” (the signs read “No Justin, No Peace”) were vaulted to national prominence. Not only did the old Republicans in Tennessee make them martyrs to the civil rights cause, but the Tennessee Democratic Party was reinvigorated with both energy and funds. The Democratic controlled local governments in Nashville and Memphis, charged with filling the interim open seats, reappointed the Justins.
Republican Leadership
On Monday Justin Jones paraded from the Nashville City Hall to the Tennessee Capitol in a triumphant return. Yesterday Justin Pearson was reappointed in Memphis and paraded through that city. He will return to the Capitol today. By the end of the week, both will be back in the small minority of Democrats in the Tennessee legislature. And the Republican leadership has to answer the question: what was the point?
Surely all of this was foreseeable, even to them. Regardless of their political viewpoints, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are charismatic and politically seasoned, able to take clear advantage of what the “old white men” of the Tennessee legislature decided. The protests, the parades, the rallies on the Capitol steps and the reinstatements – all were perfectly obvious to anyone with a sense of Tennessee’s political climate.
Representative Johnson claims it was out of sheer pique. The Republican leadership lost control of “their” House when the three went to the rostrum “in the well” and began chanting. The great “capital sin” was that they were “out of order”, violating the “decorum” of the House. That the three would dare do such a thing was so outrageous that expulsion was their only remedy. Johnson sees the action as simply wielding the absolute authority that a super-majority of Republicans have, regardless of the consequences; the hubris of power.
The Script
In a larger sense, the Tennessee super-majority is simply following the “script” of the National Republican Party. Their national answer is to “double-down” on power, and on the small base of Republicans who believe that somehow protests, by minorities and more particularly by Black people; are un-American. Catering to the White, soon-to-be minority base, is the essence of the MAGA philosophy that dominates Republican politics today. It abandons any pretense at a “middle ground” political view. Just demonstrate ruthless power and control, and satisfy those voters who are terrified of changing demographics.
It is not just “Trump” politics, it is the governing strategy of DeSantis and Florida and Abbot in Texas. The ruthlessness isn’t just seen in heavy-handed legislative action and gerrymandering to protect Republican seats. Abbot is begging for the opportunity to pardon a White man who was convicted of murder for shooting a Black man with a gun in a protest. DeSantis is scrubbing the Florida public school curriculum for references to race. Like the House leaders in Tennessee, it just seems extreme to crazy.
The danger is, that, at least for the short-term, it works. And, of course, that’s the point.
